


blame it on the weather.

by foundCarcosa



Category: Fable (Video Games), Fable 2 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:58:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sparrow visits Garth in Samarkand, three years after Theresa dismisses them from the Spire.<br/>They don't expect what happens next, but who really does?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Three years since the last time they'd seen each other, and the first thing he says when he sees her on the docks is, "Watch your step."

There _is_ a missing stair on the way down to the hard-packed sand, and Sparrow is grateful for his mindfulness, but she'd expected something with a little more gravitas. Something like, "It's good to see you again." Or, "Nice haircut."

Then again, she'd also believed that once she laid eyes upon him, the Spire would again loom large in her memory, overshadowing their reunion with unhealed hurts. But here, under the forbiddingly golden Samarkandian sun, he doesn't seem like the Garth she remembered at all.

"Nice dress," she comments, nodding at his robes. His resultant scowl puts a smile on her face, a smile that had been woefully absent for too long.

"The secret to walking in this climate is constant hydration," he reminds her as they pass through the town square, a sprawling clamour of tradesmen and sailors and cloyingly sweet smells. He presses a waterskin into her hands, and she raises an eyebrow at it.  
"We don't keep liquids in glass. They're too precious to store in breakable bottles."

"This visit had better be worth it. I feel like I'm on another world."

"You are," Garth reminds her, ushering her into a squat stone building.

\--

He didn't live here, he'd said, but he often stayed here when he was in town. Sparrow touches her fingers briefly to the incense diffuser in the corner, the vicious swaths of thick paint that formed the paintings hung on the walls, the gauzy drapes that billowed gently whenever the slightest breath of wind caught them.  
If it weren't for the ungodly heat, Samarkand's biggest port city would be beautiful. But already she wishes for a cool bath, an opportunity to strip out of her light but smothering garments.

"How do you not just give up on clothing out here?" she blurts out when he steps in, hands laden with a bright red fruit, and his eyebrow arch makes her flush. She touches her fingers absently to her cheek, surprised.

"You get used to it. Our clothes are made for the heat, anyway. And so are we." Garth plunges his fingers into one of the fruits, splitting it open. Seeds sprinkle out, scattering over the sandy floor, but he pays them no heed as he offers her a half.

"What is this?" The juice is sticky and sweet-smelling, the fruit pulpy. She watches him from under her eyelashes, to see how he eats it.

"What we swear by. Redfruit, it's called, for obvious reasons. Eat."  
He scoops the meat out of the tough skin and eats, sucking the juice off his fingers, licking it from his lips. She realises she's staring, and sucks her teeth before digging into her own fruit. _This bloody heat. Makes fools of us all._

The snack shakes off some of the sickly haze that had settled over her mind and vision, and she's able to keep her end of the conversation, trading tales of current events in their respective lands. The Alban nobility is discussing adopting a monarchy. There is a voyage to a previously-unexplored continent leaving from one of the smaller port cities.

"And no one knows about the Spire here?"

"It would seem that way," Garth responds quietly. A shadow falls over the room, and Sparrow shivers despite the sweat trickling from her brow.

"I wish I could say that I don't think about it anymore."

"So do I."

"I dream about it, I see it in the shadows in my house, I..."

But there is no reason to go on about it. The tightness in Garth's jaw, the jittery flicker of his lines, spoke volumes. He knew, and _that_ was why she came all this way to see him, and _that_ was why he'd received her without question.

"He took something from us after all, didn't he," and her voice sounds so small that he reaches for her without thinking, pulling his hand back just before it made contact with hers.

"Surely the journey has exhausted you," he murmurs, retreating into the next room to roll out a pallet.

\--

He sits next to her, one knee crooked and his arm laid across it, as she stretches out on the soft linens. She burrows gratefully into the coolness, pressing her flushed cheek against the pillow.

"Take me sightseeing tomorrow, hmm?" she sighs, closing her eyes. "I didn't come all this way just to look at your old ugly mug, you know."

He remains rooted there for longer than he'd intended, watching her eyelids flicker and her mouth relax, following the waves of her hair spread over the pillow, tracing the path of sweat rivulets on her brow and neck. His skin feels tight, and he is strongly considering taking a long walk when her eyes open.

She stares at him without expression for a beat, and then clears her throat. "You gonna lay down, or what?"

\--

She is drifting dreamlessly in that limbo between sleeping and waking when she shifts on the pallet and bumps up against him.

She'd forgotten he was there, having laid down beside her with the posture of a corpse shortly before she'd drifted into a heavy doze. He doesn't feel like a corpse now, turned on his side and close enough that her back bumped into his front every time she moved.

A lazy, questing tendril of heat worms into her belly, and, still not fully awake, she follows it.

She grins crookedly when her shifting around elicits a sleepy mumble from him, pretending to stretch in her sleep so her body pushes into his. His hand lands on her waist as if making to push her away, but the fingers tighten. Her grin widens, and then he wakes up.


	2. Chapter 2

"Garth, we're not _teenagers,_ " Sparrow grouses, shoving her mussed hair away from her forehead.

"All the more reason why we shouldn't."  
Garth grips the ceramic cup as if for dear life, sighing in frustration before draining it of its cool water. He refuses to look at Sparrow, even as she pushes off the pallet and approaches.

"Do you think I'm playing games, here?" she asks quietly, catching his arm as he starts to walk away. He stills, but still doesn't face her.  
"Three years is a long time, Garth. If I wanted to, I could have settled down. I could have gotten married. You could have... well, I don't know. Done whatever it is you do. Disappear off the face of the earth, or something." It's more accurate of a description of 'what he did' than he cares to admit.

"If you think I sat here for three years pining after you--"

"Well, I'm not afraid to say that I might have."

Garth is surprised into facing her again. Sparrow is defiant, jaw set and eyebrows cranked down, but under the thin layer of indignation is a tough woman's vulnerability, that uncanny ability to show _just enough._  
Disarmed, chagrined, he lowers his eyes.

"I don't pine for anyone," she amends, her voice quiet again. "But I thought about you. And, well, I know you, and I know me. We might not have anything to build on, but I'm only here for a few days."

She returns to the linens, lays back down. Garth remains where he's left for a long moment, his fingers twitching as his brain whirrs. He hadn't considered... he'd never...  
But that was a lie. And he hated lying, especially to himself.

They lock eyes when he starts towards her, and as if his choice was written plainly on his face -- it most likely was -- she begins unbuttoning her sweat-damp shirt.  
He fumbles with the closures on his own, so unused to what he was about to do that his heart hammers in his chest. Not since Lucien...  
But there is no time for that. She pulls him into an embrace in which it is easy to lose himself, easing into a recline. His skin itches where it touches hers, Will lines trembling and flaring to life at the contact; friction makes them spark, and he hears the gasp catch in her throat when the scratchy hair on his face brushes against her glowing neck.

He pulls back. "I don't think I..."

"Shush. I don't remember, either."

"I hope I..."

_"Shush."_

They move slowly, sometimes just breathing as they acclimate to the feel of skin against skin, sometimes digging fingertips in or nuzzling hard when the waves peak. His fingers spark when he slips them between her thighs, and she trembles but doesn't shy away. He doesn't think he'd be able to quell the electricity buzzing under his skin even if she had. _Not since Lucien..._

On his back, he shuts his eyes tight as she takes him in hand, her hair tickling his chest and throat, her weight slowly descending upon him. Heat suffuses him, blotting out everything but her lips crushed against his, her body rocking a slow rhythm, surrounding him, a welcome prison.

Fleetingly, he thinks perhaps he would like to be used to this.

She is rough when she comes, gripping his wrists, bearing down and grinding hard, her teeth gritted and her eyes shut tight. He watches avidly, thirstily, a man starved. He follows her without hesitation, going rigid before going limp, his awareness fragmenting and shattering for the quickest of moments as the ecstasy peaks.  
He is not afraid.

"You make the funniest sound, you know," she says later, eating redfruit in her smallclothes, the juice dripping onto her heavy breasts. "When you're brought."

"I do not."

"It's like..." She closes her eyes and lifts her chin, a weak keening moan slipping past her parted lips. Garth winces before scowling, splitting his fruit open with uncommon force.  
Her laughter is infectious, but he refuses to join in.

"Oh, come off it. It's not bad. I like it." She sucks the juice off her fingers, one by one, and that look's back in her eyes again. "I do. Really.  
Come do it again for me."

\--

"You'll... you'll write. I know you will." Sparrow's conviction is weak, but she tilts her chin defiantly. Garth swallows, squints, looks off and over the sea.

"We'll see each other soon," he says quietly, squeezing her hand. "Gan willing, we'll see each other soon."

Disbelieving, she doesn't wave from the ship as it pulls out of harbour. He doesn't notice, because he doesn't linger on the docks. His mind is made up.  
But there is much to do before he will be able to return to Albion, to keep his word, and time waited for no man.


End file.
